Legendary Canadian musician passed away

With this publication, we begin a series about Canadian culture.

In the mid-1950s, and later in the 1960s and 1970s, folk music captured the minds of civil rights activists, housewives, and teenagers, with hits by Bob Dylan and Joan Baez blasting from every iron. Gordon Lightfoot was one of the leaders of the folk movement being, probably, the most sophisticated poet of the twentieth century in the Canadian song tradition. He passed away this Monday, May 1, at the age of 84.

Born in the small town of Orillia, Ontario, Gordon Lightfoot has done more for his country music than probably any other Canadian musician of the past century. His equal, Leonard Cohen, left this world in 2016. Now Canada's songwriting legacy rests in the centuries and on vinyl records, sounding from smartphone screens and home speakers.

Without perhaps knowing his name, we are nevertheless familiar with his work and, most importantly, his voice is easily recognized. An aristocratic baritone, he could have been a successful artist in any other genre, but he chose the guitar as a companion to his musical passions.

Lightfoot started in the 1960s. At that time Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Kate Wolfe, and Dave Van Ronk were already dominating the folk scene. Lightfoot's voice sounded less like a rock or folk singer than anybody's else, and it immediately captured the hearts of millions.

Gaining musical momentum at the same time as the other popular folk singers, Lightfoot achieved international success when his friends and fellow Canadians Ian and Sylvia Tyson recorded two of his songs, "Early Morning Rain" and "For Lovin' Me."

Later, the legendary trio of Peter, Paul, and Mary released their own versions of these songs. Their "For Lovin' Me" was a breakthrough, and American singer Marty Robbins reached the top of the country charts with "Ribbon of Darkness," after which Lightfoot's reputation in the music world rose to new heights. Overnight he joined the ranks of such scene heroes as Dylan and Johnny Cash.

Bob Dylan, undoubtedly recognized by all music magazines and organizations as the best musician of the twentieth century, admits that his friend Gordon Lightfoot passed away “without ever having made a bad song”.

“Every time I hear a song of his, it’s like I wish it would last forever,” Bob Dylan said of Mr. Lightfoot.

Over the years Lightfoot's music has been performed by some of the most prominent voices of the twentieth century: Neil Young, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, as well as Barbra Streisand and Eric Clapton. They tried to imitate him, Dylan, too, but unsuccessfully.

"The cultural treasure of the Canadian nation," as he was dubbed by Robbie Robertson, founder of the Canadian band "The Band", remained impregnable to any attempt to imitate his style. He was, and still is, too individual. And the most personal is always the most creative.

To Canadians, Mr. Lightfoot became a national hero, a star who stayed home even after achieving spectacular success in the United States, and who delighted his Canadian fans by touring up and down the country again and again. His ballads, such as "Canadian Railroad Trilogy," are imbued with a love for the national rivers and forests he once explored on ambitious canoe trips far inland.

“Sometimes I wonder why I’m being called an icon, because I really don’t think of myself that way. I’m a professional musician, and I work with very professional people. It’s how we get through life,” Mr. Lightfoot told the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail in 2008.

In 1965, he appeared at the Newport Folk Festival where many performers marked the beginning of their career, also in Rhode Island and at Town Hall in New York, which accelerated his start in the industry.

“Mr. Lightfoot has a rich, warm voice and a dexterous guitar technique. With a little more attention to stage personality, he should become quite popular,” Robert Shelton wrote in The New York Times.”

That's what happened, and it was inevitable.

Play "If You Could Read My Mind" (1970), which he wrote reflecting on his divorce, and you'd be surprised how close his music has always been with you. His other songs, inspired by thoughts of his own life and becoming gems of rock and folk, have held the top of the Canadian and American charts.

Some of Gordon Lightfoot's best-known and acknowledged compositions include the following:

1. "Early Morning Rain" (1966),
2. "Steel Rail Blues" (1974),
3. "Ribbon of Darkness (1965),
4. "Sundown" (1974),
5. "Carefree Highway" (1974),
6. "Rainy Day People" (1975) and
7. "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" (1976).

When Canada was celebrating its centennial, in 1967, the Broadcasting Corporation asked Mr. Lightfoot to write a song about the Canadian Pacific Railway, which runs through the whole country. Within three days the work was completed. The idea of a transcontinental railroad allows Lightfoot to paint a vivid portrait of Canada, capturing the natural beauty as well as telling the story of the country. He mimics the clicking of the railroad tracks by bringing in strings and harmonica.

Lightfoot suffered a minor stroke in 2006 but continued touring. Ten years later, he gave 80 concerts, then told the Canadian press: “At this age, my challenge is doing the best show I can.” But just last month, he announced that he was canceling all his scheduled concerts for health reasons.

Nowhere was Lightfoot more beloved than in his native Canada, where he helped transform its music industry into a global force. Needless to say, that listing all the awards and prizes he received during his incredible career is simply impossible.

“He sent a message to the world that we’re not just a bunch of lumberjacks and hockey players up here,” Geddy Lee of Rush said in “If You Could Read My Mind,” a 2019 documentary. “We’re capable of sensitivity and poetry.” In the process, Lightfoot became one of the most successful recording artists of the 1970s.

Gordon Lightfoot will be remembered as a composer of sophisticated ballads, always appearing elegantly to the public. The recognition of the professionals, which began in the 1960s after his first musical successes, has not waned in the last half-century. Gordon Lightfoot himself is a Canadian music scene – a guitar and a stirring voice. Nothing extra.